Lessons From Camp

And Mr. McNamee, once again, good morning, everyone. Still chuckling at the mud pit. Can't help myself. Actually, kind of want to see that. We're actually going to have another event going on that day. We won't be able to be there, but somebody take pictures and video. Sounds great. Well, Shannon and I just wrapped up our summer camp season for 2021.

Northwest Camp just ended this past Sunday on the 25th. And while we really enjoy camp, while we really enjoy the opportunity that we have to serve in the United Youth Camp programs, both in Southwest Camp and in the Northwest Camp, we're going to be doing a lot of work. Both in Southwest Camp and also at Northwest Camp. I can assure you the adage of there's no place like home is absolutely more prescient this year, truer than ever before. We left for Southwest Camp on the 28th of June.

We spent the first night in Sacramento. We picked up a U-Haul in Fresno the next day. We loaded the container up at High Sierra, loaded the U-Haul, drove it down to Bakersfield, stayed the night in Bakersfield, spent the next night in Prescott, and then started camp. Basically, we went and got all of the deliveries and things taken care of, got camp set up, got everything going.

Spent the week of camp. We left Wamata Chick on the 11th of July. We spent the first night in Bakersfield, the second night in Sacramento after we unloaded the trailer and returned it. And then the third night, we spent finally in our own beds. We got home. That would have been Tuesday night.

Friday morning, I had counselor training for all the counselors at Northwest, so we basically unpacked, did laundry, repacked, and then headed to camp. Some of you are nodding because you were in a similar boat. Those of you that did both Wamata Chick this year and Northwest. I will say I've done back-to-back camps before. This is not the first year that we've done multiple camps. There was one summer that we had four camps, including, well, three teen camps and a pre-teen camp, when it was all said and done.

But this is the first time that I've had a camp that was so close together with three days on the road in between. And either I'm getting old or this is getting harder as time goes on. Probably the answer is a little of column A and a little of column B. But I look back at SEP, some of you guys that have been to SEP or maybe staffed at SEP, and those were six-week staff sessions.

Folks would go in there for a six-week period, essentially, and stay there the entirety of the time, and kids would rotate through. So the kids would only have a two-week time, but you'd be there staffing three. I don't know how you guys did it, honestly, looking back on it. But it's a pretty incredible thing, but ultimately it is good to be home. We mentioned in the sermon before I left for camp just how special of a program our United Youth Camp programs are. It's hard, truly hard to describe to somebody just how special they are until you've had an opportunity to see it for yourself, to see it with your own eyes, and to see the changes that go through these young people in just a week's time.

Seriously. The difference between day one to day seven is unreal. It really is unreal. And every year on the parent surveys, the parents tell us that their kids come home different people. The parents notice it, too. The parents notice it, too. It is a very special thing. You know, when the zone gets established and you have a place in which kids can really, truly be themselves for the first time in possibly over a year, where they don't have to be necessarily so guarded, they don't have to be in a place where they're trying to kind of hedge against the possibility that someone is going to find out that they actually are someone who fears God, and that they actually believe and care about what he thinks, and that they're going to live their life in accordance with that, they don't have to have walls up anymore.

They don't have to keep people slightly away. They can actually open up. They can actually be in a place where they can allow themselves to be reflective fully of God in his ways. And when you're in that environment, when you see that zone get built and when that zone is maintained, young people blossom.

They begin to rise to the standards that God has set for them, not begrudgingly, not because they feel like they have to, but because they recognize that God loves them and that he desires more for them than what the world has promised, and what the world says is the ultimate reward. They recognize God loves them more. And it takes a couple of days. I'm not going to tell you it's perfect from day one. It takes a couple of days for the smog to clear out of the lungs.

It takes a couple days for the kids to kind of get into the feeling of the zone, but starting about Tuesday, Wednesday, you turn that corner. And starting around Tuesday, Wednesday, you start to see a very clear change. Once that staff and once those campers begin fully ensuring that they are yielding themselves to God in all circumstances, it makes for a very special week.

And this year was no different. It's possible that it's because we didn't have the opportunity to have camp in 2020 and the desire that the youth had to be together that made camp more special this year. But I think this year was even more special in a number of ways, and I wanted to take some time today to kind of provide a little bit of a recap and to leave you with some of the lessons that I learned this year as big takeaways from summer camp.

The title of the message today is Lessons from Camp. Lessons from Camp. And I'd like to leave you with three things that are concepts that I realized this year that I think I've always sort of realized, but maybe just saw a little bit more clearly this year than in past years.

And the first of those things is that camp is not simply a place. Camp is not simply a place. The second thing is that God is working mighty wonders. God is working mighty wonders. And lastly, our youth are absolutely precious to God. Our youth are absolutely precious to God. Camp is not a place. God is working mighty wonders. And our youth are precious to God.

Camp High Sierra was the location that we had in the southwest region for, I think, since the early 2000s. I think one of the first years that it was there was either 2001 or 2002. It had been ochreced prior to that, up outside of Oakhurst, California. And then we ended up at High Sierra and have been there pretty much ever since. And so this year was one of the first years that we were going to be utilizing a facility other than High Sierra for quite some time.

Now, High Sierra is nestled in the mountains about an hour outside of Fresno. It's up the hillside on the way up to Kings Canyon National Park. If you've ever driven into Kings Canyon from Fresno, you've passed right by the road that takes you in there. You head into Kings Canyon, it's about another 20 minutes up the road to the national park. And it's about 20 minutes off the highway, it feels like, going back into camp. But you go up into the mountains, you wind your way back up into the road off this highway, and you drop down into this just beautiful camp. Large property, a couple of nice big lakes, you know, it is beautiful. It's a beautiful location. It's got a pavilion right on the lower lakeshore that we use for Sabbath services. And it was a little bit bittersweet this year in some ways when we drove onto campus going to pick things up. A number of the youth in that area, whether it was Southern California or whether it was Arizona, they grew up spending their summers in that location. And as such, for many of them it was formative. For many of those young people, it was formative.

This was where they spent their summers. They were quote-unquote High Sierra kids. You know, they grew up through the program. They staffed the program. They continued. Their kids, some of them, are attending the program. You know, it's incredible the generational capacity that goes through with that. But when it became apparent that we weren't going to be able to hold the camp in California without any restrictions, or I should say without significant restrictions, possibly at all at that point, we started to look elsewhere. We started to look for a location that we could operate that would allow us to hold camp, with reasonable precautions in place, but still be able to have camp as we kind of knew it. I'm not going to get into the story of how we found the camp itself. You already know that story. But what that meant is that we had a location that we had used for a decade plus that many of these young people had gone to year after year after year, and it was a special, special location to them.

So we had some concern, honestly, that there would be a lot of, well, this isn't really like High Sierra. This location is not like High Sierra. This location doesn't have this or this. High Sierra did. We were a little bit concerned that that would ultimately be the takeaway from the year as we went into this location.

But, you know, we realized very quickly as we drove on to the property to go and pick up the things that we had there in the container up on the hillside, we realized very, very quickly it didn't feel like camp because it was just a facility. It was just a place. The people weren't there. Camp is not a place. It's the people that are there that make camp what it is.

You know, that principle is a principle that we find throughout Scripture in many ways in a number of different capacities. And very infrequently when you look at God and the way that God worked, very infrequently did God call people together in isolation. Very infrequently did God call people together in isolation. You have a concept of an assembly that is found at the very beginning of Scripture all the way to the end.

Let's go ahead and start over in the book of Numbers today. Go to the book of Numbers. Numbers 10. I'm going to jump in here just a little bit with some instructions regarding an assembly. Numbers 10. We're going to see the instructions that God provided Moses relating to the manufacturing of two silver trumpets.

And these trumpets were instructed by God for Moses and the priests to be used in very specific purposes, very specific ways, in order to kind of work with the assembly of individuals that were there. Numbers 10. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. Numbers 10 in verse 1 says, Verse 3, When the assembly is to be gathered together, you shall blow but not sound the advance. Sons of Aaron, the priests shall blow the trumpets, and these shall be to you as an ordinance forever throughout your generations.

When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies. Also, in the day of your gladness and your appointed feasts, and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, and they shall be a memorial for you before your God, I am the Lord your God. So we see God provide instructions at this point in time to make these two silver trumpets.

We see God instruct that the blowing of these trumpets were to cause the assembly of the congregation, in this case, the Hebrew word ada, which literally means assembly or swarm or flock. What the assembly kind of is referencing is just the mass of humanity that was out there in the wilderness, you know, all these individuals that were there. And depending on the pattern of the blast, depending on the number of trumpets that were sounded, it would signify different things.

One trumpet meant to gather together the leadership, right? Two trumpet blasts meant to gather the congregation itself. We see that there was a sound of an advance, so a certain pattern of the trumpet blasts, it would enable them to realize, hey, we're headed out. And there was a way to make sure that certain groups did this very much orderly as it went. Verse 9, we see these trumpets were also used to sound alarm for war, as well as to rejoice before God, to signify the beginning of their months, to be blown over the offerings as a memorial to God.

And we commemorate this in part on the day of trumpets, as we consider the meaning and the symbolism of that day. But these two trumpets were created to help organize and inform the assembly of God's people at this time in history. Now, this was not something that was intended. You don't need trumpets for one person. You don't need trumpets for two people.

You need trumpets for an assembly. You need a way to ensure that all of these individuals know what is going on. So obviously, this is the nation of Israel. This is a large group of people at this point in time that God is working with. But if you go back and you look at whether it was Noah and his family and their descendants, whether it was Abraham and his family and their descendants, even looking at Jacob and his sons prior to the events of the Exodus, God doesn't typically work with people in isolation.

God works with people together as a group. Brethren, we are called to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We are called to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Let's go over to the book of 1 Corinthians and kind of continue to build on this concept. Book of 1 Corinthians. Considering this idea of us being built into something that is bigger than ourselves, Corinthians 3, 1 Corinthians 3, we have been called to be a part of something that God is building spiritually.

We are called to be a part of something that God is building spiritually. And ultimately, that is much bigger than you and me. That is much bigger than you and me. 1 Corinthians 3, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 9. God is calling a body of believers. He's calling a bride for his son. We know that there are places in Scripture that talk about that. And then Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 9 of this important concept that we need to consider. He talks about the ministry through whom God serves his people. And he asks the question, who is Paul? Who is Apollos?

Who are these individuals, ultimately, that God worked with in these capacities? He says, they are simply those who planted and watered, and God himself provided the increase. God built the building, so to speak. God put the people together in such a way. Paul and Apollos, yeah, they had a role, but God was ultimately working in that capacity to be able to build these things up. Verse 9, he goes on, 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 9, says, For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, you are God's building. According to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder, he says, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it, but let each one take heed to how he builds on it.

For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone, verse 12, builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, verse 13, each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one's work of what sort that it is.

It says, If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. You know, the nature of which we build upon what God has started in us is critical. That we build on that foundation with precious stones, that we build on it with gold or silver, as opposed to building on it with perishable and consumable things, because, as Paul says here, the fire, the trials, the difficulties, the challenges, that's what will ultimately test the workmanship of what we've built.

He says, build on it with precious stones. He says, build on it with gold, with silver, with things that will withstand the fire, that will withstand the challenges.

You know, in many ways we recognize we as the body of Christ, we are individual members within a temple that God is building, spiritually.

We're a collective building that is made up of individual members. Each of us, so to speak, are stones in the wall, being built on top of that foundation of Jesus Christ, and they're being set and they're being arranged, again, off of that chief cornerstone. The cornerstone has been put in place. The rest of the walls are built based on the setting of that chief cornerstone.

But we are being built into the temple that God is fashioning His children to become.

And as such, each and every one of us matter in the collective kind of nature of the temple itself.

But how we're building is critical to the strength of the assembly as a whole.

If you have a weakened brick, if you have something that's not quite there, the wall itself begins to suffer.

Paul talks about this foundation. He talks about how we have to continue to build on it. He goes on in verse 16. 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 16, he says, Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. So Paul goes one step further. He says the temple of God is holy. The temple of God is set apart. It's intended to be different. It's not intended to be like the world around us. It's not intended to rise to the standard of the world.

It's intended to rise to the standard of God. It's intended to rise to a different standard, and that is God's expectation of us. Let's go over to Ephesians 2, verse 19, as we continue to build this concept. Ephesians 2 and verse 19. Ephesians 2 and verse 19. We see Paul kind of continue to build this idea, a different letter this time. Ephesians 2, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 19. But Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, he talked about the importance of this collective body, not just currently, not just right now, but historically as well. You know, Paul, the way that he writes this, he considered even those that came before them as being a part of this temple that God has built and is building.

And he makes the point that we're all in this together. We're all in this together collectively as part of this temple that God has built and is building, and we work to support one another. We hold each other up for the edification of the temple, or the edification of the body. Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2, and verse 19 says, So Paul says we're no longer strangers and foreigners.

We're fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. And again, that includes those who came before us, those who will be a part of the first resurrection. But we've been built on the same foundation with Christ as that cornerstone, again, those stones being set very purposefully in place. And as God fits us together block by block, that assembly of individuals becomes a holy temple in the Lord. Now, if you think of a brick wall, I don't know if any of you have ever built a brick wall before.

It's a little bit easier with mortar, I guess, but if you're dry stacking brick and you're working on ensuring that you're able to get a brick wall that is plumb, you know, and isn't going to be situated slightly, those bricks, when they're in place, when that is set with a solid foundation and you get a good solid plumb wall, those bricks will fit perfectly into place and those bricks provide some degree of support for the bricks which are around them.

Because you have two edges and if they're fit tightly together, it's very challenging for those edges to move out of place this way and that. Some of the old arches that you see in Rome, you have these stones that are built up and they come up the thing and then there's what? There's this capstone that goes into place, this piece that's at the very top, and you drop that capstone into place and the forces are distributed and that arch holds. Some of those arches have stood for 2,000 years because those bricks are fit together in such a way that they support one another.

The wall holds itself up. It edifies and supports itself. And as time goes on, that assembly of individuals is built as God is building that temple, fitting it together block by block into a holy temple in the Lord, which is a place where His presence resides. Now we recognize there's an individual component to that. God is dwelling in each and every one of us.

Yes. But you can't build a wall out of a single brick. You can't build a building out of a single brick. It has to be an assembly. It has to be a number of bricks fitted together as God purposes. So in that sense, when we talk about what makes camp camp or what makes church church or what makes an assembly of believers a body of Christ, it's the people of God who are gathered together that does that.

Those who are called according to His purpose, those who are actively growing closer to Him. And you've all heard the analogy. You've got the triangle with God at the top and two individuals at the bottom. As those individuals grow closer to God, they grow closer to one another. Because they're both in the same direction heading towards the pinnacle of that triangle, so to speak. And as they get closer to Him, they grow closer to each other by default. Right? So when we think about camp, when we think about whether it's a people or a place, camp is a people.

It's not a place. Whether it's Womatacik, whether it's High Sierra, whether it's Northwest, whether it's Salem, whether it's Portland, whether it's Eugene, whether it's Roseburg. The people and their collective presence of God dwelling in them is what make it what it is.

Second thing that was obvious this year, and just unbelievably apparent, was that God works incredibly mighty wonders. And this year, I was so incredibly thankful to God that it was so clear and so apparent in so many ways that He was working in our camp programs. The theme of the camp this year was Be Anchored to God.

We talked about that before we left. But it rotated around the concept of building our faith in God as our anchor. That God and the promises that He has provided are the anchor for us as we go through challenges, as we go through difficulties. We're able to anchor ourselves to God. We're able to ensure that we can survive those challenges in that way. And one of the aspects that we talked about was that sometimes that looks a little bit like testing God in the little things. Stepping out on faith. Not tempting God, not, you know, like He's prohibited in Scripture, but testing Him in the little things.

Tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. You know, providing opportunities where we have a chance to prove God in the little things so that we know who is faithful in little is faithful in much. If we know that God is faithful in those small things, when the big things do happen, then we can trust in Him during those big things. That was one of the day's themes. It rotated on this idea of setting your anchor and ensuring that you could know that you could trust that anchor. You know, you don't just throw the anchor out and let it drift across the bottom.

You make sure that it's set before you tie it off to the cleat of your boat. And it was so unbelievably incredible this week, or this last couple weeks as we went through camp, to see instances of God answering prayers in very specific ways, publicly. You know, these weren't even behind the scenes. These were very public answers to prayer. I know I've told this story already, but I'm going to tell it again. At the end of June, and kind of the beginning part of the month of July...we good?

Okay, awesome. And part of June and the early part of July, Prescott gets these monsoons. So I've never lived in Arizona. I've never actually really ever been to Arizona prior to this. I didn't know that an area that I would consider to be the desert or the high desert would get these monsoons that come in. So imagine my surprise in the afternoons when it got cloudy, all of a sudden it got thundery and lightningy, and all of a sudden just the skies opened and just dumped rain for about five minutes and then turned the faucet off.

And I went, huh! That was not what I expected in the least bit. So talking to the locals, that's pretty common at the end of June and the first part of July. About middle to end of July, that tapers off and it's not as big of a thing. But what is not normal in the Prescott or even the Phoenix area are days where it just rains and rains and rains and rains. It's common to have a monsoon come in, drop five minutes of rain and move on.

But to have rain settle into the area and stay is very, very uncommon. On June 25th, as I told you guys, the U.S. Forest Service closed down the four national forests surrounding Prescott to the public due to the fire risk. They were taking precautions they didn't want the public in. They went around to every campsite in those four national forests at like 8 a.m.

on Friday and said, Get out. Go. Go home. You're done. I know you have reservations. But they went campsite to campsite and roused people out and said, Go home, basically. I talked to the U.S. Forest Service because that made a major impact on our camp because one of our hikes, it turns out, was going to be in that area. And it may have impacted our kayaking program as well. But I talked to him and I said, When's this thing going to open up?

Give me the lowdown here. What are we looking at? He said, Honestly, it's probably Labor Day. He said, I wouldn't expect it to be open before Labor Day. And so we made changes in our plans. We worked through it. We got it all taken care of. But what we did ask was, we sent out a prayer request on the E-News for rain in the area.

We said, Listen, this area has got like four different fires going around it. None of them are directly threatening camp, but it's kind of a big deal to the people of Arizona. We don't want smoke coming into camp, obviously, so we asked for prayers for rain.

And what was interesting is, the week that we got there, the first couple of days we got there, it sounds like the three days prior to our arrival, it had rained solidly in Prescott, morning tonight. Just consistent. Now, I mean, not a ton of rain, but consistently from the beginning of the day to the evening. The first couple of days that we were there, the staff sabbaths, we had some monsoons.

We also had a couple of days where it stayed a little bit cloudy and rainy. We also had a couple of storms that came through during camp itself. But by Wednesday of camp, they had lifted all of the precautions, and they had reopened the national forests in the area. The restrictions that they had put in place lasted 12 days. That's it. 12 days. God heard the prayers for rain, and he answered in a mighty, mighty way. It was incredible to see, especially, I think, for the kids to be able to see that, no, God does hear these prayers. God does answer these prayers, quite specifically, in the way that they have been asked, which is, please pour out rain on this area so that they can not have fires.

Now, he's continued to do so. Those that were just down in Arizona experienced some pretty significant rain events as well, which has been a very good thing for that area.

So by the Wednesday of camp, we had reached a point where God had answered that prayer very powerfully. And we certainly did bring that up with the kids and just praise God for as good as he was in that case. On the Friday that we went to go pick up a U-Haul, we had to go get the U-Haul to go and get everything back in the storage unit, ultimately. So we're getting everything loaded up, and me and Mr. Kennedy, Steve Kennedy, drove down into the town to go pick this U-Haul up. And we walked down, came down into town, and there was this massive storm that opened up. A huge storm. You couldn't see, you know, 20, 30 feet in front of you, ultimately, when it was all said and done. Just gray, black clouds, tons of rain, streets were flooding, and it's heading in the direction of camp. So we, you know, phone call up to them, say, hey, batten down the hatches, you got a big one coming. And then Steve and I, with the U-Haul trailer, tried to outrun it. That was kind of fun. Tried to see if we could get up ahead of it, and it's right on our tail the whole entire way. And we're radioing, no, really, batten down the hatches, this thing's coming. And we got there, we got everything unloaded, you know, we got everything set, and then the storm hit. We got everybody inside, thunder, lightning, the whole thing. Pretty good amount of rain. And Scott McKeon had an app on his phone, and he brings it up, and he opens it up, and it's called MyRadar. And apparently it's just a radar app that shows your current position, and the radar that is over you at that time. And there's a little blue dot where we were, and this just wall of storm coming our way. And it's like green, yellow, red, purple, black. It's like massive amount of rain coming right at us. I mean, right at us. So we're like, well, I mean, we're not going anywhere for a little while. We might as well, you know, settle down. We did. We hung out in the cafeteria for a little bit. But what was incredible was, you know, the rain hit hard at first, but then it lightened up significantly. And we saw the thunder, and we heard the thunder, and we saw the lightning, and a little bit of rain that seemed to surround us. Scott opened up his app again, and it went right around us. The storm front, which was a literal wall of storm front, thick, wide, went right around us. And there's a little spot in the middle, which is a blue dot, and there's this little ellipse of green that surrounded the perfect edges of our camp. And that storm went right around us, and then reformed on the other side of our camp. You cannot tell me that is not God, and His hand of protection in that circumstance. And so we told the kids, we showed them the radar apps. Anybody who wanted to see it, look what our God did.

God works. Mighty, mighty wonders. And what was incredible was that fit into our themes so perfectly this year, because one of the lessons that we talked about was how God is with us even in the midst of the storm. It was perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better example, but God provided it. You know, when we talk about it, when we make that clear, when we show our youth these things that are happening and the actions that God has taken, it is so much more powerful than when we just talk about it, or when we just tell them about these circumstances in our own lives. You know, it's no different than Israel. God worked mighty miracles in the past. He continues to do so. We commemorate these miracles as part of the Holy Days. We rehearse them to keep the wonders that God wrought in our heads so that we honor and we praise Him for it. Let's go back to the book of Psalm, Psalm 105. Psalm 105. And in Psalm 105, we get a little bit of a rehashing, so to speak, of the faithfulness of God. And I won't read you this entire Psalm for sake of time, but I would suggest I'll sign it as homework. How's that? Where we leave off, you finish it tonight sometime, or finish it while I'm still talking with the rest of it. But it's fine. Either way, I'm cool with it. Psalm 105, verse 1, says, O give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples. Brethren, when you have God bless you in some way, or when you see God's hand in your life, tell someone. Because we recognize, we recognize that there are times when life is very challenging, and that it's difficult. But knowing that God is there, knowing that He is working in our lives, is powerful. Sing to Him, sing Psalms to Him. Talk of all His wondrous works. Glory in His holy name, let the hearts of those rejoiced who seek the Lord, seek the Lord in His strength, seek His face evermore. Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders in the judgments of His mouth. O seed of Abraham, His servant, you children of Jacob, you chosen ones, or His chosen ones. He is the Lord our God, His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham and His oath to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant. And then it gets into the promises that God ultimately provided them. But it says, talk of His wondrous works. Acknowledge Him, praise Him for them. Praise Him in His glory for the things that He has done in your life.

It says, praise the Lord, and that's how this one ends. Praise the Lord.

You know, God tells us repeatedly throughout Scripture that He'll be with us. We know that God is never too far away. We know that He's always right there. We see the promises that if we draw near to Him, He'll draw near to us. We know that God protects us and He keeps us. We do know also that we experience challenges and difficulties. But guys, this isn't even it. We had people who were miraculously healed the week of camp. We had kids specifically praying for specific outcomes. And I'll give you one scenario, and I will not name names, but a young man we thought broke his ankle. We were this close to taking him to a medical facility to get him checked out. Prayed like crazy. He was playing volleyball on it the next day. No problem at all. Ankle was the size of a basketball. It was enormous and just unbelievably swollen up. God is good. And the kids saw it. They prayed the next day. They saw that young man playing. We had another situation. They prayed. That night, she was dancing. You know, there's scenarios that happen in which God is there, and He's working, and He's always working. And I think there's times, especially after the year that we've experienced, or the year and a half that we've all experienced, where sometimes I think in our youth's minds these messages need to be seen. Not just heard, but seen with their own eyes. To see that God is there, to see that He is a God of wonders, to see that He is a God of miracles, and that He is right alongside them, working in their lives and helping them in their lives, all they have to do is reach out to Him. And I think the reason why God does that is our final point today. That our children are absolutely precious to our God. Our children are absolutely precious to our God. And God has made it clear through Scripture that the point of His purpose and plan for mankind is that He seeks godly offspring. He seeks sons and daughters to be part of His family. Let's turn over to the book of Malachi, and we'll see this enumerated in a contextual principle here that is outlined for the people of Israel. Malachi 2, and we'll pick it up in verse 10. God describes the relationship with His people. He describes their responsibility towards Him. And ultimately, it outlines a spiritual principle that is critical and very important for us to understand. Malachi 2, in verse 10, says, Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? He says, Why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers?

Says Judah, has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution, which he loves. Speaking of marriage. Says He has married the daughter of a foreign God. Now may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob, the man who does this being awake and aware, yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts. Verse 13, and this is the second thing that you do, you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying, so that He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with good will from your hands, yet you say, for what reason? And He says, Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously, yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. And so He's bringing in this spiritual principle here in recognition. He says, But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? Why unify a husband and a wife in the covenant of marriage? This is the principle He brings out. He says, He seeks godly offspring. That's the answer. When it comes down to why a father leaves, or a man leaves his father and mother, and becomes one with his wife, it's because God seeks godly offspring. One of the very first commands that God gave to Abraham, to Adam and Eve, was ultimately to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, to provide a number of individuals whom God could call, whom God would work with, whom God would build into that temple that we spoke of earlier. God desired to bring these newly created individuals, these children of the marriage union, into His family to call them and to provide for them, for the opportunity for them to grow, to be sons and daughters. Now the offspring, those godly offspring that He's seeking, they're holy. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 7. 1 Corinthians 7. Again, tucked in here in an instruction regarding marriage is another concept regarding children. 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 14, and again this section is talking about marriage relationships, it's talking about divorce, and it's talking about it from a context of the Gentile believers who had come to the faith while married. You know, as they'd gone around and they had instructed and taught and individuals began to come into the way, then there were a few of these had big questions of, well, what now? You know, my spouse doesn't believe, but I do. What am I supposed to do here? And so Paul, in those instructions, provides the following, but he also provides a very important point with regards to children. 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 10 says, And now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and a husband is not to divorce his wife. But to the rest I say, or to the rest I, not the Lord, say, If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. Verse 14, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean. As is but now they are holy. Verse 16, For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband, or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? Paul's point in this is that the believing spouse sanctifies the unbelieving spouse for the purpose of sanctifying their offspring.

It is that believer who causes the sanctification of their children, or the setting apart of their children, in God's eyes. So, young people, your calling has been provided to you because of the faith of your parents. That is the reason God has extended this invitation to you as well. Now, their calling was likely provided by your grandparents. And on and on that chain goes until you get back to that first individual whom God began to work with that came into the faith as a first generation Christian. But you have been called, and as a result, you are precious to God. You are His future sons and daughters. You are individuals whom He is working with, whom He is calling, who He is sanctifying and continuing to work with.

And for those of you that are parents, your children are absolutely precious to you, and there is nothing that you would not do to protect them, to keep them safe, to help them. You love them unconditionally, even though they might drive you a little crazy sometimes. But that doesn't change your love for them, and God sees your children in the same way. And the reason that God sees your children in the same way is because at the end of the day, they're His children. We're simply stewards for a time. It is our job to point them in the right direction, and ultimately their job is to respond to the calling that God has provided them.

And so as such, God provided us with a book of instructions on how to do this life right, how to do it His way, how to rise to His standards, not the standards of the world. God wants to see your children successfully, He wants to see your children happy, and in that vein, He desires things for them that are bigger than this life. Much bigger than this life. Things that are much more permanent than this world and its fleeting promises.

Because His desire ultimately is that we become a part of His family. Let's go to Romans 8. Romans 8. This whole section of Romans is an incredible, incredible bit of Scripture. There's just so much contained in here. Romans 8. And we're going to pick it up in verse 1. Romans 8, verse 1. We'll read through verse 9. I'm sorry, verse 11. Romans 8, verse 1 says, In the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Verse 9. It says, It says, Focus on the physical and the carnal. It might say the standards and the ways of this world, as opposed to the standards and the ways of God.

Paul writes that those who are in the flesh, those who are guided by carnal things, can't please God. But he goes on to say that if you had God's spirit dwelling in you, or in the case of those prior to baptism, God's spirit working with you, he says, then you have been shown a different way. He says you've been shown a different way. And at that point, we have two paths that are before us. We have the way of God, and we have the way of the world.

They are not the same way. They are not the same path. They are not the same end result. The book of Proverbs puts it differently. It says, The way of wisdom and the way of folly. And that's the way the book of Proverbs lays it out. That wisdom is calling out to us in the streets, and so is the way of folly. Calling out to us as well.

And brethren, once you know, you know. Once you know, you know. Verse 12, he goes on to say, Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

And then verse 14, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Verse 17, And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we also may be glorified together. Paul writes, we are not debtors to the flesh.

Brethren, we don't owe this world anything. We don't owe this world anything. On the other hand, we owe Jesus Christ and God the Father everything. We are in debt, and if we are led by his Spirit, it says we are his children. So God desires Godly offspring. He desires those children to be set apart and holy, different for the world, distinct, living a life through his Spirit, such that they become his children. The big question is why? And for what? Well, it says right here in Romans 8, verse 14, 15 and 16, for an inheritance. For an inheritance. A permanent and eternal inheritance.

The promise of what is to come in the future, what is more, the hope of the promises that he has given and ultimately will fulfill. And we've all seen movies, television shows, perhaps, where a person gets into spat with their family, you know, and they have this big to-do and this big row in the family, and at some point the rich father tells the bratty kids, that's it! You're out of my will! There's nothing for you here! You're no longer my son! I mean, we've all seen that trope, right, in television.

You know, very infrequently do we see the inverse of that trope, which is where the person adopts a person into the family and provides a complete inheritance for that person. That's exactly what God has said he will do. That he will adopt into his family and provide an inheritance, same exact inheritance that Christ has provided, that we will be not just heirs, joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

You know, Christ has a different administrative responsibility, but ultimately our inheritance that God is offering to us is the same. Brethren, our youth have that same opportunity for that inheritance. They are absolutely precious to our God. God wants them to be successful. He wants them to live a life in which things are done right, in accordance with his ways. And in the end, our children become our spiritual brothers and sisters.

Now, this year's camp season was very special. It really was. And I still don't know whether it was just not having camp, you know, for a couple of years, or not. We just needed it to be extra special this year for a reason. And I think it's probably the latter. But it was incredibly special. There were a lot of lessons learned. I wanted to take some time today to share just a couple that stood out. Plans are already underway for 2022. And we hope to see you there.